Electronic conferences typically comprise a web conference and a telephone conference. The web conference is typically provided by a web conference system, and the telephone portion is typically provided by a telephone conference system. Web conference systems allow conference participants to conduct distributed conferences that may include document, presentation, text, audio (e.g., a sound clip), and video content. Telephone conference systems allow conference participants to participate in a telephone conference that may or may not be part of an electronic conference. To create an electronic conference, a conference organizer uses the web conference system to schedule a web conference, send out invitations to conference participants, and provide the content of the conference. The conference organizer schedules the web conference by identifying the conference participants, such as a conference leader, conference presenters, and conference attendees, and setting the conference time. The conference organizer schedules the telephone conference using the telephone conference system or uses a reservationless telephone conference that does not require scheduling and is always available. The telephone conference system may provide the conference organizer with a telephone leader pass code and a telephone attendee pass code. The invitations that are sent to the conference participants may include the appropriate pass code.
At the scheduled time, the conference participants can use their computer systems to join the web conference by logging on to the web conference system. The web conference system maintains a web roster of the conference participants. If the web conference system has or is provided with the telephone number through which a conference participant is accessible, the web conference system can direct the telephone conference system to place a telephone call to that telephone number so that the conference participant can participate in the telephone conference without having to dial in. The telephone conference system can then notify the web conference system of the telephone line associated with the conference participant. The web conference system can then maintain a mapping of the conference participants to their telephone lines. When a conference participant speaks during the telephone conference, the telephone conference system can notify the web conference system of the telephone line of the speaker. The web conference system uses its mapping to determine the identity of the speaker and identify the speaker to the other conference participants. Also, when a leader or a presenter wants to mute the line of a participant, the web conference system uses the mapping to identify the telephone line to mute.
In some instances, however, conference participants may elect to dial in to the telephone conference, rather than have the web conference system direct the telephone conference system to place a call to the conference participant's telephone. This may occur, for example, when a conference participant is traveling and may not know in advance the telephone number of an accessible telephone. When conference participants join a web conference and join the telephone conference by dialing in to the telephone conference system, the web conference system will not know which of these conference participants are associated with which telephone lines. Thus, when one of those conference participants starts to speak, the web conference system cannot identify the speaker to the other conference participants. In other instances, conference participants may not be able to join the web conference (e.g., because the Internet is not readily accessible), but may decide to join the telephone conference only by dialing in to the telephone conference system. In such an instance, the web conference system will not even have that conference participant in its web roster. Thus, when that conference participant is speaking, the web telephone conference system will not be able to identify that conference participant to the other conference participants other than anonymously (e.g, as “caller 5”).
FIG. 1 is a block diagram that illustrates the architecture of a system that supports electronic conferences that include a web conference and a telephone conference. A web conference system 110 is connected to computers 130 of the conference participants via a communications link 150. A telephone conference system 120 is connected to telephones 131 of the conference participants via a telephone network 160. The web conference system and the telephone conference system are connected via a communications link 140. The web conference system maintains a web roster 111 that maps the name of the conference participant to the telephone number of that conference participant and the identification of the telephone line through which the conference participant is participating in the telephone conference. The telephone conference system maintains a telephone roster 121 that maps the telephone lines of the telephone conference to their telephone numbers. When the telephone conference system places a call to a conference participant, it maps the line to the telephone number of that conference participant. For example, line 1 is mapped to telephone number 555-0001. If, however, a conference participant dials in, the telephone conference system does not map that line to a telephone number. When the web conference system directs the telephone conference system calls a conference participant, the telephone conference system notifies the web conference system after the call is placed so that the web conference system can update its web roster. For example, the conference participant J. Smith has been associated with line 1 of the telephone conference.
It would be desirable to have a mechanism in which a web conference system could identify conference participants who dial in to a telephone conference.